My second major trip outside of England during my semester exchange involved taking a flight to Paris, hopping on a train to go to Geneva, Switzerland for a short stay, then continuing on to Italy, visiting various Italian cities – Milan, Rome, Florence and Venice. Finally, I would fly to Barcelona then back to England for some end of semester partying.
Switzerland was very much a country that my friends and I considered to be too expensive to visit. Furthermore, beyond the financial cost, it was more a place to ‘live’ rather than a tourist destination. I personally wanted to take a train straight through Switzerland into Italy from France, or spend more time in different parts of France, but due to the incessant winging from Tom (my friend who joined me on this trip) about wanting to see Switzerland, I agreed to stay two nights in Geneva.
To my surprise, I found Geneva to be an unusual city compared to others I had visited in Europe, with natural, urban and historical elements blended together to create a picturesque and sometimes surreal city. On Google maps, our hotel was out in the sticks, seemingly far from the city centre, however it turned out that the transport system was excellent and the hotel easy to get to and from. The hotel itself was also stunning; it was a mansion set within a lush, green meadow.
The city centre was stunning; with old European style buildings surrounded by the crystal clear water of Lake Geneva and the Alps. The restaurants, while extremely expensive for those on a student budget, had some amazing dishes. One example that I tried was Zurich-style beef which, so far, has been the nicest beef dish I have ever had in my life. And of course there were the amazing Swiss chocolate stores which, being a chocoholic, I overindulged in.
As a law student, one building that I wanted to see was the Palace of Nations (now United Nations) headquarters in Geneva. Overlooking the city, it was built in 1930s in an attractive art deco style. However, the attractiveness of the building was unfortunately tarnished by the brutalist architecture used to design the extension to the palace in the sixties. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to see CERN, the huge particle accelerator used to smash atoms together.
One peculiar thing that we noticed was that it was unusually safe and pleasant to walk around the city centre at night. In most European cities that I visited, you would be a cautious about walking around certain areas of major cities at night. Stories of tourists being robbed and pickpocketed are common. Geneva was unique in that people seemed to be carefree at night. They would be out, riding their bikes around; older couples would be dancing in pavilions and there was a even a fireworks display going on over Lake Geneva.
Despite my reservations going there at first, I now rank it as one of the top European cities that I would love to live and work in if I was given the opportunity.
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